Jean-Baptiste Say Quotes

Capital can seldom be made productive, without undergoing several changes both of form and of place, the risk of which is always more or less alarming to persons unaccustomed to the operations of industry; whereas, on the contrary, landed property produces without any change of either quality or position.

I have made no distinction between the circulation of goods and of money, because there really is none.

Labour, upon whichever of those operations it be bestowed, is productive, because it concurs in the creation of a product. Thus the labour of the philosopher, whether experimental or literary, is productive; the labour of the adventurer or master-manufacturer is productive, although he perform no actual manual work; the labour of every operative workman is productive, from the common day-labourer in agriculture, to the pilot that governs the motion of a ship.

No human being has the faculty of originally creating matter, which is more than nature itself can do. But any one may avail himself of the agents offered him by nature, to invest matter with utility.

When war becomes a trade, it benefits, like all other trades, from the division of labour.

With no fixed opinions in relation to the causes of public prosperity, the nation, like a ship without chart or compass, was driven about by the caprice of the winds and the folly of the pilot, alike ignorant of the place of her departure or destination.

The theory of interest was wrapped in utter obscurity, until Hume and Smith dispelled the vapor.

The best scheme of finance is, to spend as little as possible; and the best tax is always the lightest.

At Newfoundland, it is said, that dried cod performs the office of money,

But, is it possible for princes and ministers to be enlightened, when private individuals are not so?

Capital in the hands of a national government forms a part of the gross national capital.

Valuation is vague and arbitrary, when there is no assurance that it will be generally acquiesced in by others.

Some writers maintain arithmetic to be only the only sure guide in political economy; for my part, I see so many detestable systems built upon arithmetical statements, that I am rather inclined to regard that science as the instrument of national calamity.

Opulent, civilized, and industrious nations, are greater consumers than poor ones, because they are infinitely greater producers.

Every individual, from the common mechanic, that works in wood or clay, to the prime minister that regulates with the dash of his pen the agriculture, the breeding of cattle, the mining, or the commerce of a nation, will perform his business the better, the better he understands the nature of things,and the more his understanding is enlightened.